Adani to venture into e-commerce to take on Ambani: Report

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Adani Enterprises fundraising plan amid report of ecommerce foray

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, May 28: The diversified conglomerate Adani Enterprises is mulling a foray into the e-commerce business. The Board of the Adani Enterprises has approved a plan on Tuesday to raise over ₹1600 crores.

The Board of the Adani Enterprises in a meeting on Tuesday gave its nod to a proposal to raise ₹16600 crores. The conglomerate will raise the funds through placements with the qualified institutional investors and other modes.

The fundraising plan of the Adani Enterprises has come just days ahead of the Lok Sabha poll verdict. The diversified group already has interests in several of the businesses.

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The Financial Times in a report said that the Adani Group may be entering the ecommerce business. The London-based daily while citing four sources said that the Adani Group may enter the e-commerce space through the public ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce).

The report said that the diversified group has already applied for a license for UPI (Unified Payment Interface). It argued that Adani will venture into the ecommerce space with ONDC and the UPI license.

Incidentally, the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre is promoting the ONDC to allow a level playing field for the businesses. Tata and PayTM are currently part of the ONDC network.

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Amazon, Reliance, and Walmart currently dominate the ecommerce space in India. The ONDC network also hosts scores of the Farmers’ Producers Organisations (FPOs). They sell the farmers’ products directly to the consumers.

The government aims to scale up the ONDC to create a hassle free e-market place for the small and the big businesses to sell their products directly to the consumers. But the ONDC currently is not able to compete with the large players in the e-commerce space.

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Under the Modi government, the Adani Group forayed into the airports by acquiring a number of airports in the country. The diversified group had also launched an App. The Tata Group also launched an App.

The Adani Group has interests in businesses such as coal, power, real-estate, defence, and others. By raising funds, the diversified group is bracing up for another spell of expansion into the new areas.

India’s retail sector is booming. Reliance and Tata groups entered into the retail businesses in the recent years.

Reliance acquired a few of the App-based retail businesses in the recent years to gain a scale to compete with the MNCs. The Tata Group is also raising the scale to take a slice of the fast-growing retail business.

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